Majority of website administrators are constantly updating their sites to ensure that they are constantly displayed on the first page of search engines such as Google. This regular activity can be exhausting even when done by a seo company, as the ranking factors set up by Google are frequently being changed for the benefit of online users. According to Google, there are at least two hundred ranking signals within their algorithm which they use to rank websites as well as pages. It is therefore important for businesses that rely on search engine optimization as part of their online marketing to have a better understanding of these ranking factors.

In most cases, working with a seo company to maintain as well as update the site, makes it much easier to adhere to the rules put up by Google and still get high rankings on the site. Professionals in seo are able to make appropriate changes according to the ranking factors thus lifting off the burden from business owners. Although it is important to have an idea of all the ranking factors used by Google, there are some that are considered to be crucial if a company is maintain or even increase its rankings on the search engine. Some of these biggest ranking factors that affect search engine optimization are:

Page-level factors

The content displayed on the website plays a big role in successful seo and plays an important role in its ranking. Google prefers longer articles with relevant information and keywords as opposed to superficial articles. The use of target keywords is important both within the content and title pages as well. When ranking pages, Google relies on the title tag displayed to have an idea of the topic on the page, thus making it important to have a keyword as part of the title so that it can be ranked higher.

Back link factors

Link building is an important factor when building a website because Google uses the links to determine the level of ranking that will be assigned to a site. The back links used should be of high quality and should quickly direct people to the site. Furthermore, the number of back links that direct online users to the website contributes a lot to its ranking, meaning that they should be quite a number for ranking on the search engine to be higher.

Social signal factors

Regular sharing of content from the site through a wide variety of social networks increases its overall authority resulting in better search visibility for its pages. If the Facebook or twitter accounts that are sharing the content are popular then it carries more weight with Google. Therefore, it is crucial for online users to share the content as Google pays attention to the social signals, whether through Google plus, Facebook and even twitter.

Overall, becoming familiar with these Google ranking factors is a good start towards improving seo on your site, whether you are working with a seo company or not.

Has it been a while since you distributed a press release? Sending a press release in 2014 can still be a great idea. It can enhance your profile and help your PR, also, it can drive traffic to your website and it even help with your SEO. Google takes a dim view of over optimized anchor text in press releases so be careful to only use branded and URL based keywords and you’ll be fine. Google has this to say about links in press releases “Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. For example: There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a wedding, you will have to pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.”

There are also some great free and low cost press release distribution services still available on Fiverr etc. Whatever you do make sure you write an engaging and newsworthy press release or get a good SEO like Scot Croneto do it for you that you can expect to be picked up by a journalist somewhere to drive your PR efforts to the next level.

Pinterest is one of the hottest topics in the social media sphere these days. Everywhere you look online…there it is! But for those who are looking to maximize the marketability of this media, there are many tools online to help. Today, we wanted to share several of these tools.

* Adding a Pinterest ‘Follow Me’ button to your email signature. Wisestamp is a free service that makes it easy to add a Pinterest button, along with other social media link icons, to your email signature!

* Adding Pinterest to your WordPress Blog. The ‘Pin It’ button plugin automatically places a button on the bottom of each post, present and past. There is also a way to add the button in widgets by installing the shortcode.

* Pinterest Analytics. If you’re going to be using Pinterest as a marketing tool, it’s important to understand what’s happening behind the scenes. Pintics is one tool that will help in these analytics. Though still in beta version, Pintics will manage multiple accounts for you and let you see traffic and sales from your pins. Pretty cool!

* Have an iPhone? Can download the Pinterest App so you can use it anytime…wherever you go! Browse, Pin & more… any time!

Want to speed up the Pinning process? Here’s a few sites and apps to help in Chrome!

Have you ever logged into Facebook to see what your friends and family are up to and find yourself saying “Who are all these people?” Sometimes you want to see what your friends did on their vacation last week, but you may not want to see what that strange classmate’s cat is up to. Facebook has a filter to help clean up your news feed and remove unwanted posts! The acquaintance filter lets you separate your “close friends” from the rest of the people on your friends list. By changing this setting you can filter out all the unwanted posts. Have an ex who keeps posting pictures of them and their new boyfriend or girlfriend? Simply filter their posts out using this filter and get on with your life!

Here are the steps to setting up the new filter:

1.Next to the header for the “Friends” section in the left sidebar, click “More” (HINT: You may have to first click a “More” button at the bottom of the sidebar to find this section.)

2. Click the Acquaintances List.

3. In the right sidebar you’ll see a box of “List Suggestions.” Click “see all” at the bottom of that

5. You’re presented with a grid of faces of friends with whom you haven’t interacted much lately. Uncheck any that you want to keep as “Close Friends.”

6. Click “Add to Acquaintances.”

By adding these people as “acquaintances” their content and posts wont show up on your news feed as much.

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks on the web today. You can gain a lot from Twitter when using the right strategy. Having a significant amount of followers does matter if you want to see your business grow through Twitter.

Grabbing people’s attention online can be difficult since there are so many social networks and campaigns out there. No matter how hard it may seem, never try to take the easy way out. If you try and attract fans the wrong way, it could severely damage the image of your company.

If you have completely given up on bringing in followers the natural way, never let the idea of buying followers come to mind. This is one of the worst ways to add followers to your Twitter page. These purchased fans are not real and won’t bring anything beneficial to your page. You really aren’t fooling anyone by doing this. Fans and other people will notice that you’re buying fans and this will make your business look desperate. This can cause you some reputation management problems for which you’ll have to get a reputation manager to help you sort out and you’re wasting your money by doing this because you could potentially lose some of the real followers you already have.

If purchasing followers wasn’t bad enough, some people are using a new, useless strategy to gain followers. Following a bunch of people just to receive a follow back then unfollowing them is not the route you want to take when trying to gain fans. If you think that the people you once followed won’t notice that you unfollowed them, you’re wrong. Almost everyone, even if it’s just a personal page, keeps track of the amount of followers they have. It may seem like a great way to trick people into following you but they will unfollow you just as quick as they followed. Never use this strategy unless you want to lose some of your credibility and loyal fans.

Once you do start gaining followers, it’s always best to stay humble. Don’t let the amount of followers you have, get to your head. Never get cocky and remember that you once started off with nothing. If you start to lose your interactions and engagement with your audience you can easily lose all of your followers. Always keep you page updated no matter how much of a fan base you have. The bigger the fan base, the more you should be posting.

If you use Twitter the right way, you can gain tons of fans for your business. You always want to have real, loyal people following you. Don’t let the stress of needing the most followers bring you to using these desperate strategies.

Marketing with social media has become one of the most popular ways to get your brand known today. More and more companies join social networks everyday hoping that new clients will arise. No matter how much hard work you put into your social media campaign, sometimes you won’t see any results.

This happens when a business doesn’t know when or what to post. If the information you arr putting out is repetitive and boring, you’ll notice that no one is interested in what you’re offering. The amount of time you spend on each page daily and the type of information that you’re giving out does matter if you are looking for success.

It’s hard to figure out how much effort should be put into each social media network but it is mandatory that you know. If no one is paying attention to some of your posts, why are they even being published? Followers and fans log into their social pages to read new and interesting information that will benefit them in someway. Take the time to find news that others want to read about other than always posting about your business.

It may seem like common sense but you should always know who your audience is. Not knowing who’s reading your posts makes it hard to know what exactly to post about. You could be posting information that is useless to your fans. This will lead potential clients to leave your page and have no reason to come back. You always need to know who your target audience is and what they want to hear. This will make your life so much easier when updating your social media pages.

The amount of time that needs to be spent on each page is different for every business. Don’t spend all your time posting about endless offers or boring information about what your services are. If you are working with a small business, take about an hour to update all of your pages daily.

If you own a big company you should spend more time online. Take two hours out of each day to interact and engage with fans. Fans and potential clients will get thrown off if they always see a post asking them to buy something. Use your time wisely and post about topics that your audience wants to read about.

Every company is going to have a different way of working but they all should take these tips into consideration for their social media strategy. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed when working with social media but when it’s done correctly, you’ll see nothing but success for your brand.

If you work online everyday, the browser that you choose to use can be a very important decision. Each browser has something different to offer. You rarely ever see anyone using Internet Explorer anymore because it is so out dated. These days, people want a browser that can provide the most while working online. Google chrome is one of the most popular browsers used today and others are trying to catch up.

Google Chrome offers so much to users online. One of its best capabilities is their omnibox. This feature lets you enter a search query into the address bar which then will send you directly to Google results. It may seem like such a simple feature but many people really appreciate this.

It didn’t take much time for other browsers to catch on to this awesome feature. IE, Opera and Firefox soon added a similar feature to theirs. These weren’t the only companies that decided to jack Google’s technique. Soon after every other browser decided that this feature was best for them too, Apple made an important announcement:

“Now there’s one simple field for both search terms and web addresses. When you enter a web address, Safari takes you right to the web page — and even fills in the entire URL. Safari finds what you’re looking for in a faster and smarter way. As you type in the field, Safari stays one step ahead and suggests a Top Hit — the closest match to what you’re looking for. Safari uses pages from your bookmarks and history to find a Top Hit, so you find the right web page fast.”

Apple called this new element SmartSearch. It doesn’t instantly take you to Google but it gets the search job done. Tons of people use Safari on their smartphone and are used to it. This could possibly interest Google Chrome users into browsing with Safari.

Safari isn’t just changing the way their address bar works, it has added tons of other new features. Its performance is faster, scrolling is smoother, a new share button has been installed and much more. All of these upgrades could lead to taking the number one spot of being the best browser

Owning a business comes with a lot of responsibility. You have to get the name of your brand out there for people to see and hear about it. Social media is the new way of connecting with potential clients and if you are not online, you’re truly missing out. If you own a business, having accounts with multiple social media networks is a must. Even if you think there is not enough time to manage these pages, you can always hire a social media team for help. Finding a social media team that will benefit you can be a difficult process. Not everyone knows where to look when searching for a social media team.

The first option that should come to mind is, of course, GOOGLE IT! You use this network to search for everything else, why not use it for finding the best social media team. All of the most professional teams will be on the first page of your Google results which makes finding the best team easy. Just because they are on the first page doesn’t mean that they are the perfect match for you though. Actually take the time to thoroughly look through the results so you don’t waste time learning about a team you can’t afford or work with. It’s also important to speak with them on the phone and ask key questions to see what they can do and their personalities.

Don’t waste any more time looking in the wrong places for the perfect social media team. Networking with other relevant businesses is a must if your own your own company. Go ahead and ask other business owners where they went to find their social media help. It is very possible that other companies will point you in the right direction.

Facebook is great network to search through for help. When searching through Facebook you will find tons of great social media teams. Some may not be what you’re looking for but many quality marketing teams operate through Facebook. Sort through the most professional teams and business pages to get a better view of who might be best for your company.

There are many different ways to find the right social media team for your company. Social media is something that has to be included with almost any marketing campaign today. You have to take the time to actually learn about each team you find online and think about how they will benefit your business. It may seem stressful and time consuming but it will pay off in the end.

Understanding how SEO works is crucial if redesigning your website to not lose your current rankings and organic search. Once it’s done, it’s done. If you do not have someone on your team that knows how this works, it is extremely necessary to know how to do this right. One way is to do hours of research and trust that you or team members will do this correct or another way is to find a trustworthy source or SEO marketing agency that knows how the two work together and do this for their own website. Below are some “Key” reasons…

Key Reasons Why Needing a Specialist or Trustworthy help:

* Need to know how to let Google know if the website URL changes. If you don’t, SEO rankings will fall. All of the time that the domain URL has logged to build up the site would be lost and may have to start over again with the new URL.

* Performing an inbound link analysis. Inbound links are extremely powerful and losing these links will cause your site to lose the authority it does have. Find what pages are linking to your site and where they are linking. Then let your developers know so that they can make the right changes.

* 301 Redirect. This is absolutely critical to have your pages with a 301 redirect to the new pages and will safely pass PageRank and your site will be able to maintain search equity.

* Have an SEO audit completed. What’s the loss in doing this? It’s extra eyes on your site to make sure that you don’t miss anything. An SEO will also be able to share little tweaks and changes to help maximize your site.

There are quite a few more essentials to make sure to do this right in making the redesign of your website compatible with your Google and search engine rankings.

There are many small things one can do on their website to market to other audiences and their target market. One way to get different users is to come up with new and informative content for your users is a very useful way to keep them coming back to your website. When creating new content, one should think of the different types of users that are going to come across your website.

For instance, if your website was classified in the health industry, you might not want to talk about just healthy foods or recipes, you also might want to talk about great exercises you should do after you eat. If you market just a little bit extra, giving that extra piece of the puzzle and provide the rest of the puzzle at a later date, you will keep your users interested and coming back to your site.

Email marketing is also a great way to get traffic from different people. If you mix a little bit of traditional marketing with online marketing, you will find your company will receive more inquires. Being a firm believer in the more people that hear about you, there will be more inquires.

So let’s go through an example: You set up a table at the mall one afternoon and you offer some company pens for free. In return to receiving a pen they have to give their email address. Once you have their email address you can send them emails of what your company has to offer. The user may not be interested but since you gave them something for free they will resend your email to a friend that might need to use your product or service. This is a very simple tactic that will get your name or brand out so you can generate new clients that may bring referrals.

Another very useful way to capture more than just your target market is by providing a comment section to your social media or blog posts. At the end of each blog post, provide a question to your users that prompt them to want to give feedback. Once you have received your data from the comment section, see what different types of answers you receive. In gathering this information it might help you with your next blog post and the little piece of the puzzle for you following after that. These small items are free things for you to do for your company and your users that will achieve a give and take relationship. Establishing relationships is pertinent in generating revenue for a business and creating the best type of marketing strategy “Word Of Mouth” advertising.

Search engine optimization has changed dramatically as what seemed rather simple to do with even the self-taught person at home can no longer be done by hundreds of links and using old practices.

Matt Cutts and the Google team has changed the game for only the digital marketing and SEO agencies who know what they are doing amidst the Google Panda and Penguin updates to be the “players” in the SEO game today.

Those agencies that are still on the first page are certainly capable of getting their clients there because they have understood how to adapt to these changes. Google is not one to be fooled with their team working to fine tune how rankings and search is updated and maintained.

Below are a few key trends of top SEO media trends to consider:

1) Google+:

While their popularity hasn’t seemed to gain the popular word on the streets as Facebook or Twitter, the social network has continued to gain in large numbers. This year saw the addition of many new features on their network. What is more noteworthy is the traction that Google has and gives more authority to Google+ business pages, Google Local pages and others that have taken the extra effort to setup and use their network.

2) Press Releases.

Recently Google has changed the goal posts with regard to press releases, these can still be used for digital PR but be careful how you use them for SEO, either use no-follow in your links or neutral anchor text, like the company name or URL.

3) Larger investment in Organic Search Engine Marketing.

Their are numbers across the Web that share that about 90% of what SEO web administrators focus their budgets on is PPC campaigns, even though true sales have shown to come through organic search results. PPC is geared for quick results but investment in SEO is geared for long-term and apparently most want quick fixes. In 2014, the trends are that more than the 10% budget amounts will be increased to see the longer term results.

Most people try to make New Year’s resolutions or goals for the coming year. In many cases, they may start off great but the goals and efforts made in the first weeks don’t usually carry through the end of the year.

Such is the case for those in some businesses with their social media postings. At the beginning when a new business dives into social media posting, often times a social media page may start strong but the interest of posting seems to wane and an outsider may wonder what happened.

As we start the new year, businesses should re-think their social media goals and plan to commit to post on a frequent basis.

Here are five keys for your business to why to commit to being more “social” in 2014.

1) Tailor your social networks to your business. Is it really necessary to have 30 different social media pages for your business? It is important to utilize the main few or handful that will best benefit your business. It is hard to go wrong from creating a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn company page but one or more may not be necessary. Use to your strengths and then be creative on reaching as many people as possible through these channels.

2) Network, network, network. It’s important in how to be creative in what you are doing. Planning, strategizing, and then reach out to grow your circle of influence. Tweeting to ten people is not going to grow your brand and followers to its full potential. Networking can and is time consuming but how can you afford to miss out on reaching new friends for life that can become mutually beneficial?

3) Post more pictures. Whether it’s inside the office, having fun outside the office, your coffee at the office or your cat… people love pictures and are more engaging to those who see them, especially on Facebook. Pictures can catch the emotion of someone or when sent with a question, can generate a great response.

4) Fine tune your writing skills… or hire one. At least to me, bad grammar or misspelled words are a turn-off and bug me. I always catch them on a local news channel and even some TV commercials and I wonder how they can even get through and posted for thousands or millions to see. Some others may feel the same way and if they do, see your business or agency in a lesser way. It may not have anything to with the quality of your business but this visual way of how your business is ‘portrayed’ can be a deal breaker to some.

5) Communicate…and then keep doing this. It is so important to know what is happening inside the company and that employees can know key issues as well. When this is done, then updates and certain things can be communicated through social media channels to let customers know what is happening too.

These are a few keys to starting and keeping your social media resolutions and goals going for 2014.

Google Panda, Penguin and other updates took its toll on many websites and some may never recover unless with the help of a digital marketing company that can provide organic SEO to regain what may have been lost. While some are still reeling, many websites have been able to weather the storm and getting back on track for Google’s recognition.

While it may or may not be possible to get back to the top page without organic SEO help, an interactive and engaging social media presence can help lead you higher in Google’s rankings, especially if your competition is not as active on social media. Some of Google’s latest algorithm changes have signalled that the customers online may play a bigger part in how a website may get ranked and where it may land in search. Some understand social media’s close connection to online reputation management (ORM) and how the two fit together to present a picture of your online reputation in the best possible way. This is some of where the future is headed. The more people that are talking about your brand/website from +1′s, retweets, mentions, shares, likes, etc, show that your website is authoritative.

Though, it’s great to have a ton of followers and fans to your social media pages, it’s much more important to have engaged followers and fans that are more interactive on your pages. Either find them or learn what you may have to do to wake up the people connected to your page to have them start talking about your page again. Network with others in your industry or who you believe would be a great match to follow your brand, engage with others and be involved through various online groups.

2) Have a presence and be active on many social media pages.

Having a Facebook and Twitter account created is not where it ends but for many businesses, it does. What about the importance of having an optimized Google+ business page or LinkedIn page…or even Pinterest? One never knows where a quality lead may come through and may come through one of multitude of smaller networks. Research to see which ones may be best for your brand.

3) Encourage your staff to be ambassadors of your company.

With the guidance and leadership of upper management, encouraging your staff to post, retweet, share and make comments can be a driving force for others to see your brand on their social media channels. Being social media ‘evangelists’ can make a big difference and if chosen, needs to be a constant reminder to the team…and hoping they have the desire to see this through for the vision of where your company is going.

These are just a few social media tips that working along an ethical, proven SEO company can bring the results back for websites back to the top of Google’s rankings.

What is common understanding is that if the headline is not “catchy” enough, that most people will not read much or anything below…unless someone has a core or passionate following that may just read because they enjoy the reader or blog. Though having a keyword filled title may seem to be the way to go for SEO, another direction that is crucial to the success of a blog or article is how engaging the title is to its readers to want to comment, share or retweet the article.

1) KNOW your audience!

Think about the type of people who will most likely be reading your article…and what type of people have been reading your past content, blogs, etc. What do they like? What interests do they have? How can you further relate to them each type you type a word for them? What tone of voice best works for your audience? So much to think about as you want to share something fresh, with your own voice, and something that someone would not only want to read again but may become an evangelist for your blog or article by sharing this with others!

2) Develop and Construct a Title that Will Engage…FIRST!

Seems like this is common knowledge but apparently not so much. Thought this was taught in school growing up but the online world seems to have different rules or thoughts from some writers attempting to write blogs, etc for their own website and finding throughout the internet. Eighty percent of those who actually see your title actually read it. About only twenty percent of those who read the title will go on to read what you wrote, according to Copyblogger. Needless to say, the title needs to scream out value and something that will make their time worth it to read. We all have a finite amount of “spare” time, so it seems… so it needs to draw in your readers quickly… within a few seconds.

3) Lists, Lists, Lists.

Some in the industry get tired of seeing lists and how many of this or that… but 6 of the top 10 most engaging posts of 2012 included numeric lists. For those that may be trying to be too creative, one may want to rethink this strategy as what works. Obviously, this cannot be an everyday practice but one to be creative in how to use. It also allows the reader to think about what their “top <number>” might be and see if theirs compares to the article. If not, they have the opportunity to chime in or disagree.

It is so important to draw the readers in…and the headline is where it starts… and unfortunately, sometimes ends.

Keeping your company’s social media pages active is so crucial as outsiders are watching and checking to see what you are up to. Does your company really need at least one post per day? Maybe not… but have you visited a company page and it looks like it’s been weeks or months since the last post?

In the fast paced digital world, if it has even been a couple of days, at least to me, it reflects them in a physical way too. With this in mind, maybe business owners just don’t know what to post on their page and possibly get frustrated or too busy to think about it everyday.

With the thought of all of the overwhelming information that is on the Internet, we thought we would pass along some ideas of where to find some great content for your social media pages.

* Google Alerts is one of the best places to find great and relevant content for your posting needs. Google Alerts notifies you of important keywords and monitoring your brand and competitors while Google Reader allows you to daily manage your blog subscriptions. Great resources if your time is limited to search for content.

* Your Blog: We tend to forget about this but if we have been blogging for some time, we should have plenty of great sources on our own website to use information for fresh content.

* Paper.Li & AllTop: These are both quality social media aggregator sites. Paper.Li allows you to publish your own virtual newspaper while AllTop allows you to curate content, subscribe to your favorite blogs and answer the question of “What’s happening?” in the topics that interest you.

* Twitter Trending Topics & Lists: Being logged in to Twitter, simply check out the trending topics on the left side of your profile and home page. See what’s hot on Twitter and add value or retweet, if you need to.

* Social Media Influencers: There are so many social media influencers but if you write down or compile a list of your favorites, follow and see what they are talking about. You may gain something that you want to “Share” or “Retweet” too.

Last time I checked, water was necessary to live. But in an annual Apigee mobile app survey of over 760 smartphone users, 85% of those surveyed would rather hold on tight to their mobile devices’ mobile apps over having water. Seems a bit extreme but survey asked smartphone users across the United States, UK, Spain, France and Germany.

Some smartphone users use their phones for so many things, from email to Facebook to checking the weather to waking up with an alarm clock app. It’s amazing the power and information we have in these high-tech gadgets. Some have dove in to what these mobile devices can do while some have just scratched the surface of the potential of its use for the individual owner. And some have two year old children that can find places on the smartphone that the adult has yet to discover.

Eighty-two percent of those surveyed said they could not go even a single day without their mobile device. Some of the biggest reasons of this were email (57%), Facebook (41%) and alarm clock apps (31%). Some admitted to using more than 50 different apps in a day.

Spain appears to lead the way for most dependent on their smartphones mobile apps with 93% surveyed said they could not go a day without using mobile apps. About half of Americans said they could not go more than four hours without using their mobile apps. Eighteen percent of French citizens say they would not be able to order dinner without their apps, followed by Americans at 16%.

About one-third of those surveyed said they would rather give up coffee, forever, than to give up the apps on their smartphones. Also, more than half of those admitted to using various mobile apps while they were driving.

Has the obsession of these technologies gone too far? Do you think the numbers will increase over time?

With the billion of people that are active on Facebook, it shouldn’t be that difficult to get people to “like” your Facebook Fan page, right? Well, unless you have a major brand name, most fanpages will be starting the same way…and with the same amount of fans. Zero. It takes an all -out effort to get it running and then to be consistent in the postings and activity to the page.

This post will not have anything to do with “Buying Likes” or any other type of Facebook ‘paid’ ads, etc approach to generating more fans. If you are in to that, that’s up to you… but is the easy way out, my opinion. No sweat earned other than the 160 characters typed or credit card numbers punched in.

Some of us enjoy the real thrill and rush of seeing the work that we have set out and attempted has produced real results. One more note. We have all heart the phrase “Time is money.” Social media, as most of know, consumes quite a bit of time. The same is true for marketing your Facebook fanpage. It is going to take time…online…trying different strategies to help get your page out there where more people can see your page.

Here are a handful of ways to grow your Facebook Fanpage in possibly new and creative ways:

* “Like” other Facebook Fanpages:

Search for other pages that may be similar to your page or would complement your page and then ‘Like’ them. Why? Because then you have the capability to connect with them…and their page’s fans.

* Engage and Contribute to other Facebook Fanpages:

This goes along with the above reason in that when you make comment and engage on others’ fanpages, their fans can hear your voice and see you interacting as your fanpage. “Like” others’ comments and/or post your own thoughts and nuggets for others to see you ‘giving’ of yourself.

The more often fans of others pages see you commenting, the better the opportunity for them to click on your page and “like” what you are doing on Facebook.

* Comment on blogs using Facebook Comments:

Some leading online publications now have enabled you to post comments using your Facebook page. Look around and when you find a post that you can add value that will relate to your Facebook fanpage, make a thought out comment opposed to an “I agree.” Post as your Facebook fanpage, if possible!

* Free Giveaways & Poll/Survey Questions:

If you have written a report that has some value, promote it online and give it away. Ask your fans to “share” your special promotions to help it be seen by more people than your reach.

Did you know that when you create a poll question and post this that it has the potential to reach many more people? Let’s say, for example, the Admin of the Facebook page has 3,000 friend connections but only about 100 fans on their page…that the Admin can send this poll question as a notification to as many of their personal friends as they would like? Maybe only to specific people but can also broaden the reach and remind people about your Facebook page to “like” it after they have seen your poll question.

There are so many other ways but hope this has fueled some extra creativity to growing your Facebook fanpages!

When Facebook released its Graph Search recently, marketers have been quickly learning and studying how this new search tool could be used. As we dive into this today, we’ll look at how Facebook’s new Graph Search affects B2B marketing and how those on Facebook can optimize their profile pages to be found more.

Graph Search is almost suredly being tweaked as Facebook is looking to make this a complete search tool for Facebook properties, unlike Google’s, which searches the entire Web. There seems to be many questions on the accuracy of some searches and the results that are returned.

Here are a few keys for business owners to better optimize being found:

Have you completed every part of your page’s information area, the best you can? Listed hours open, website URL, address, use of keywords are just a few of the important areas to be sure are shown. The more information, the better your chance for your fanpage to show up on the new Graph Search.

* Likes, Check-ins, Reviews, & Recommendations.

Another area what the Graph Search will account for is the interaction and positive feedback about your Facebook page. Do people offer you recommendations on your fanpage, positive reviews, and check-in to your location? Some of this seems a bit crazy but Facebook wants to reward pages that are more active and have more activity by others on their pages. Also, the more “likes” and “check-ins”…the better!

* Optimize the content that you share.

To gain a higher ranking on Graph Search, engagement and new ‘likes’ to your fanpage are very important. Also, it’s important to use main keywords that relate to your fanpage’s purpose and on topic. Engage back with those that engage with your page. Include large photos from time to time because they attract more engagement and likes.

Creating and publishing great content is so crucial in today’s social media marketplace and the more viewers of your content, the better. Valuable content that one shares is important but so are so many other elements to help your content reach the most people including timing, frequency, using photos, and much more. Whether it is for Facebook, Google+, or other similar social media sites where you are looking to have your posts be spread, here are seven tips to increase your posts to be ‘shared’ and seen by the multitudes!

Be consistent! It’s so important to post at least once a day to let your fans know that your page is active and that there’s someone on the other end. Simple visibility can do so much and those in marketing know that it usually takes a viewer or potential customer several times of seeing the brand, in action, before taking action to buy or interact.

Timing! Do some studying and testing of your own pages and/or find the best time for other similar pages that post that generate the most interaction and feedback. Restaurants and other similar pages seem to get better results from posting in the morning, opposed to afternoon or evening. Other pages might be better suited for posting in the late afternoon and evening. Test, test, test.

Use variety in your postings. Not every post should be pictures…nor should be all text posts. Using video, pictures, and text, etc change up your postings and your fans will appreciate the changes.

Keep text posts short. Research has found that text posts with less than three complete lines (100-150 characters), have a 60% more chance of being “liked,” shared and more.

Call to Action! Do your posts ask…or expect a response? If not, it’s time to be more purposeful to get and grab the attention of those seeing your messages.

Have a little fun! Probably not all the time but every once in awhile… throw in some memes, if it works for your page. Maybe a cat picture? Whatever may work for your page…those seeing your page and social media enjoy smiling and laughing… you can help!

Create an Infographic or List to share. Everyone seems to love infographics and are very shareable if it has great information on it.

These are just some of the ways to expand your Facebook and social media’s pages reach and viral potential.

Twitter marketing, as in most areas of social media marketing, the tools are all out there but how successful depends on the strategy and timing of what is done, instead of secret tips. Today, we’ll look at several tips for Twitter marketing and how this will help your brand’s marketing on this social network.

Twitter is and can be argued that the network is better for listening than in tweeting yourself. When a brand listens…and then interacts, at the right time, anything can happen. Your brand looks real and have the opportunity to help, opposed to becoming lost in the sea of unread tweets.

Here are a Few Key Tips for Maximizing your Tweets:

1. Keep it short. Recent finding have shown that tweets with less than 100 characters receive 17% more user engagement than longer tweets.

2. Tweet during the day…busier times! Did you know that tweets during the daytime hours of 8:00 am and 7:00 pm receive thirty percent higher engagement than tweets posted during the evening hours and before 8:00 am.

3. Don’t go #Hashtag crazy. Hashtags actually do generate twice as much engagement and feedback but those tweets that use more than two hashtags have found to receive seventeen percent less engagement. Also, only about 25% of tweets even contain a hashtag so many brands could be taking more advantage of this tip.

4. Best & Worst Days to tweet. Studies have shown that the weekends actually generate a 17% increase in engagement, compared to weekdays. Wednesday and Thursdays were found to be the days with the lowest rate of engagement.

5. Ask for a Retweet. Don’t be shy. Your followers need to be reminded…and if you do ask, the “retweet rate” jumps 12 times higher. Only 1% of brands even ask their followers to retweet. This may also seem strange but there is a big difference even in just spelling out “retweet” compared to typing in “RT,” though they are asking the same thing. A “RT” increases your retweet rate 10 times while spelling out “retweet” increases the retweet rate 23 times. Hmmm.

The dramatic rise of content as an incredibly effective web marketing tool, combined with the phenomenal rise in social media, has changed the way SEOs and content marketers look to create keyword-based content: it is no longer enough to create any old piece of content that simply contains a keyword or two. You have to think about the reader.

So what are the dos and don’ts when it comes to keywords?

Don’t get carried away

Is a specific word or phrase getting you some decent traffic? Great! Just be careful you don’t get carried away and overuse it. Why? Because you are more likely to focus heavily on the SEO value of your work and ignore the content itself altogether.

While keywords are indeed key to your words, and your content marketing campaign as a whole, they should at the very least be on a par with content, if not relegated slightly below.

If you don’t want to get on the wrong side of Google’s powerful algorithms, you’re best off ensuring content wears the crown, pushing keywords down the priority list. Unique, relevant content is central to content marketing success. If you create relevant content you are more than likely going to be covering the right keywords within your copy at any rate.

Not only that, you are more likely to repel than attract readers with keyword-laden content, who will go off in search of something that isn’t so obviously ‘spammy’ and self-promotional.

An even spread

If you have several keywords you need to incorporate into one piece of writing, it is sometimes tempting to squeeze them all into the first paragraph (or worse, the headline) so that you can get up to the word count without worrying about how you’re going to phrase your sentences around keywords.

The first problem with this is that you shouldn’t be writing around keywords. Sometimes it can actually work out better to write a piece and then slot the keywords in afterwards, so that there is a focus on creating sharp, engaging content rather than warping content to fit in with your keywords.

Not only should keywords be integrated into the body of the text as naturally as possible, they should also be placed strategically. Like a well buttered piece of toast, you should aim for an even spread. This way, you are not bombarding your readers with hyperlinks – something they will thank you for.

Keywords sit nicely in the headline of a great piece of content as well as sub headings, which also have a good chance of getting picked up by search engines. However, if it’s not going to fit, don’t force it. A headline that doesn’t read well is hardly going to entice readers to check out the rest of the post.

Monitor performance

Using keywords effectively is all about knowing what works and what doesn’t, so do regular research to find out how well your chosen keywords are doing.

Web analytics tools and specific keyword tools can help you to find out which keywords are performing and which are not hitting the mark.

If you are hard pushed to find the time to delve into the nitty gritty or are unsure of this new territory, a reputable content agency can be a huge help in all aspects of your campaign, from strategically incorporating keywords to creating sparkling content.

Create a strategy

Hitting the same keyword over and over again will not only lead to repetitive content, but can also be a red flag to search engines that you’re not delivering the best possible service to users.

A good content marketing strategy will work with you to develop keywords that can drive traffic, engagement and sales conversions to your website; they will also ensure that content writers will have a decent list of words and phrases to draw on.

So be sure to have a pool of both short and long-tail keywords at your disposal to keep search engines happy and your readers satisfied.

Did you know that Twitter recently rolled out revised value ratings for each Tweet? In the first of this two-parted blog, you may learn that your tweet will be assigned a “value rating” of “None,” “Low,” “Medium,” or “High.” It is to help separate good content from bad content/spam. Twitter is based on algorithms, like Facebook and Google, for what they believe makes up good content based on content, re-tweets, favorites, etc.

Social media followers are not all created equally…that is one of the big considerations to keep in mind moving forward. Why? Well, as the most recent Twitter value ratings show, the cost of acquiring a lot of followers with little to no participation is going to start taking a bit out of small business ratings.

Here is how it works:

1. “None.” Send out a tweet that seems to be lost in Neverland and it will likely return a value of “None.” Un-engaged users that don’t share, respond, comment or otherwise do anything with the information will bring down the quality of content score. What does this mean in a “real life” setting? The quality of followers is going to become a lot more important in the near future.

2. “Low.” A few followers comment or respond but not enough to make any type of real impact. In short, it gets lost in the crowd. This is a result of the number of followers as compared to similar sized other feeds.

3. “Medium.” This designation is as high as it gets…for the time being. A medium designation indicates you are on solid ground with an average number of engaged followers as compared to others in the industry, size and field.

4. “High.” This designation is not yet released but will be reserved for highly engaged, top rated content such as that which is currently trending and/or select paid content designated for social media marketing and promotional purposes.

The importance of having active Twitter followers and having interaction occurring between you and your followers. Today, we will take a closer look at what this means for those in business and business owners.

What does this means for Business Owners?

Business owners are going to need to pay special attention to the type and quality of contacts they have, those they are following and followers. Social media followers that simply sign-up for a feed might add volume, which actually works against quality ratings and engagement ratio’s. Buying followers may add volume, but most likely will factor negatively into the quality of followers that will re-tweet and comment. Engagement is key to your tweet getting assigned a good value rating and being seen.

The quality of content itself will need to be carefully reviewed to assure it is meaningful, relevant, original and engaging. In other words, if you are tweeting content that is not engaging your followers, your tweets will be little waves that never quite make it to shore and are lost at sea.

On the other hand, this is good news for both social media business users and management firms; by focusing on quality over quantity, Twitter is taking steps to increase the overall ROI and pave the way for increasing the value of Tweets, as well as followers. Tweeting low quality tweets can affect your online reputation, don’t tweet poor quality tweets or you could end up with an online reputation management problem. The ability to track, filter and define Tweets by language, location and overall value will also positively impact the ability of followers to engage in those forums which are most meaningful.

There are several Twitter applications that can be used to help look at different ‘qualities’ of your followers. One that we use, and free, is called ManageFlitter. This tool will check to see who is not following you back and many other categories including if followers have a profile image, how active they are, when their last tweet was, how many followers they have, if they tweet in English and many more.

Here’s a list of qualities a good digital marketing agency should have. You probably have other, more specific needs, but this should be enough to get you started:

Well-Rounded

You’re going to need a variety of services to succeed in the varied world of digital business, so it makes sense to get everything you need from the same source. Make sure the digital marketing agency you choose handles both website design and online marketing, which should include search engine optimization (SEO). A website should be friendly to search engines, necessitating the inclusion of both web design and SEO under one roof.

Knowledgeable about the Latest Trends

No good digital marketing agency can afford to get behind on the latest trends in a business that is constantly being reshaped by new trends. Any industry that involves the Internet or technology in general is by nature a dynamic and changing field, and digital marketing is no exception. It would be ideal if you could get a glimpse of any potential agency’s office coffee table. What publications do they use to stay up to date? Are those publications well thumbed?

As well as do they personally blog about the latest trends? Are they viewed as an agency that is well known in the industry? These answers to these questions can help you gain a better understanding if your company is one that you should hire to work for you.

Shared Goals and Ideals

Just like in any relationship, you and an agency need to find common ground. Does the agency share your goals? Does it appear that they have the capabilities to handle your future projects as well as your current ones? And do you get along with them? Sometimes clients and agencies are both intelligent and competent, but their styles clash, which leads to problems.

A Tendency to Pull

“Push” strategies involving sharing a message to consumers who didn’t necessarily ask for it, like billboards and web banners. “Pull” strategies are becoming increasingly preferred, because the customers seek out the message and thereby have a more meaningful experience. Pull strategies includes marketing through games, social media, and online communities (Wikipedia).

Ask your digital marketing suitor which they prefer. If they haven’t heard the terms, that may be a red flag, but with current trends moving toward the pull side of things, an inclination in that direction would should make an agency look good to you.

Social Media Skills

Can they work magic through social media? Nearly everyone uses some form of social media to stay in touch with friends, let their feelings be known, share photos and video, and find new pictures of cats doing tricks. The full potential of social media has yet to be explored. If an agency isn’t already on top of social media, they’re probably not worth your time.

Ability to Measure and Show Results of Success

The Internet allows things like influence and effect to be quantified. You can find out how many people watched your videos or how many times an article was shared. You can see how many people heard a particular message and responded to it, and with a little digging you can find out what kind of music they like, how often they go to the movie theaters, and what kind of body wash they prefer. So any marketing company that begs for a little of your time should be able to produce detailed records of their past results. They should also be able to explain their success (or lack of it) in clear terms.

Customized Strategy

Marketing has changed and nowhere is that more true than the digital landscape. We have strategies that we did three years ago that we no longer do. That is how quickly it changes. In order for your digital marketing agency to be successful we firmly believe that they need to have a custom digital strategy that works for your industry and where you are in the lifeline of your digital life (Forbes).

For some companies that have been working on their online presence for many years and have an active social media channels as well as an active blog that strategy would be different then for a company who hasn’t even started on these things. When it comes to search engine optimization this is especially true. If you have a website that has been around for ten years and has over 10,000 links pointing back to it then this website would need a very different link building strategy than a website that is brand new with zero backlinks pointing to it. Any good SEO service company will know this and be able to explain what your customized strategy will be. In order for your digital marketing efforts to be successful you need to make sure that the company you go with is able to create and execute on customized digital marketing strategies.

Proof

Nothing screams louder that a digital marketing agency can get you results than the fact that they have done it before. Case studies listed on their website is huge in gaining confidence that they can recreate that same success for your business. Many forget that there is a definite need for online reputation management, a good digital agency will include reputation management for you similar to this firm: http://thereputation.management/ they will help you develop and maintain a solid online reputation. Be sure that you go on their site and find the different companies that they have worked with in the past. If they don’t have any case studies or have any companies listed of past success I would be sure to ask them before hiring them to market your business.

Past success is a great indication of future success. Ask to be shown case studies of past clients that they have worked on that have been successful.

So what will it be? Does any digital marketing agency instill you with the confidence needed to make the commitment? With this list, you should be headed in the right direction to find that special someone of marketing companies.

You’re looking to get more sales through social media but do you really have the extra time to invest into it?

No? well you’re not alone there are hundreds of thousands of businesses that are looking to improve on sales through social media this year but many businesses just like your own have put the same amount of the time into their social media marketing but they’re getting more sales and more interactions, so how do they do it?

Well the simplest answer is they automate some of their social media activities mostly the tasks which take the longest. By automating they will save their business time while remaining social. In this post you’ll be learning what the advantages and disadvantages of social media automation are and what tools are available to you.

Advantages:

Saves your business time and effort which you can delegate to more important tasks

Buffer is the easiest way to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and App.net. Just sign up using your social profile and you’re away.

The best thing about Buffer is the analytics you can clearly see how many interactions each post has and the potential amount of people who saw your share. Buffer highlights your Top Tweets and posts to save you time looking for what’s working.

There isn’t one time that suits every business so I suggest using the tool TweetWhen by Hubspot which calculates the best times to Tweet, you can use this information and add it to your schedule times. Check your analytics to discover what posts are getting the most interactions work with them to improve your click through rate and interactions.

You can automate literary anything with this site from saving images you’ve been tagged in on Facebook put in your Dropbox to Tweeting to turn a light on, this tool is just awesome.

To get started create an account with your email address and add your channels. Now you’re ready to start automating, you can either search for a recipe (a combination of a Trigger and an Action from your active Channels) or you can create your own either way you’ll going to have fun automating.

These are my favourite I would recommend you to play around with IFTTT to see how your business can benefit from using it.What should I automate?

Schedule the latest news, tips and awesome videos from your industry that you feel will excite your followers.

How not to automate?

Automating your tasks to save time is all very very well but automating too much of your social media is considered spammy it will literally chop your business into two.

The most annoying automation is the auto DM (direct message) for Twitter, every-time you follow someone who has this activated they DM straight away with a spammy link to their boring site.

Auto follow is another terrible idea I would run for the hills from. You’ll receive more Twitter followers but none of them will buy from you. You’ll find it hard to strike a conversation with any of them and your feed will quickly turn to spam. When the next person followers you check out their profile before following them. It ‘s a longer process but you’ll be following potential customers.

Conclusion:

Automating your social media marketing saves your business precious time, keep your eye on your analytics so you can alter your posts to keep improving and getting the maximum from social media marketing.

Recently there has been a lot of press about the future of link building, but one thing I think we can be sure of is that it will always have a place, somehow, in SEO and search marketing. Professionals will just need to adapt and change tactics accordingly. For example, link building that you have been able to previously scale in terms of outsourcing, advertorials and directories is either now, or soon will be, much devalued by Google.

We have to ask ourselves what might Google focus on next? Most updates affect how SEO agencies and in-house search teams tailor their activities, especially link building, and a recent blog post by Matt Cutts has no doubt sent some into a spin. Cutts explained how Google will now devalue links from media sites that pass page rank. Whilst this could be perceived as PR, as a link building strategy for SEO, is being devalued it is important to understand the difference between editorial and advertorial. The links highlighted as examples were on the ‘black hat’ side of grey and to many SEO professionals it was obvious the activity falls outside of Google’s best practice guidelines. Further emphasis being put on organically built links, not those that are paid for, actually means that SEO and PR disciplines will need to work even more closely together in the future. When done correctly, it is a tried and tested form of link building that has the reader in mind – high quality, useful and relevant content that incorporates signpost links to other high quality, useful and relevant content.

Whilst this is already Google’s preference, creating exceptional content that stands out from the rest will flourish and become even more valuable in the years to come. Not only will this will guarantee results, but it will also be key to mobilise engaged communities to share this content by effectively recommending it via links from social channels and other online sources. Links for the sake of links won’t be valuable at all; they will need to be incorporated into beneficial content.

Search, PR and social media professionals must now work closer together and start thinking outside the box in terms of link building; you have to earn links, not place them covertly or just pay for them. Some of the best links can be built off-line by meeting people for example, attending industry conferences and networking is a great way to build relationships with people who then want to point others towards your content. One way to build relationships online is through followerwonk. This enables users to search for a relevant industry on Twitter and find influential people in that particular industry. This can then be used as an outreach tool by building relationships with these people and hopefully getting them to share your content.

Social search and in particular Google +, is also going to play a massive part in future SEO, not just within link building but in search in general. We are already seeing it become very prominent in Google’s results pages and I think this prominence is only going to increase as time goes on. Google seems to already be giving preference to content that has authorship mark-up and ranking it over and above other blog posts or articles. In the years to come, we are likely to see the majority of content having this mark-up present to increase its visibility in Google results, and is one of my current one to watch tips.

If you employ the services of a digital marketing agency, you have probably felt like they’re talking another language at times. The world of search engine optimisation is filled with plenty of jargon and acronyms, and is enough to confuse even the most seasoned marketers.

What makes matters worse is that SEO is constantly changing and fluctuating. This means that new terms are cropping up all the time, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult do decode all this SEO jargon. But we’re going to try!

Here, we’re going to decode some of the most common SEO terms and help you understand the secret language of the online marketing department:

301 redirect – Also known as a permanent redirect, a 301 is the most search-engine friendly way to re-direct website traffic when the URL of a website changes. 301 redirects will automatically send all direct and search engine traffic to the new destination.

404 error – A 404 error notifies a website browser that the URL they have entered is either typed incorrectly or been removed. This can happen if website pages are deleted and a 301 is not put in place. Too many 404 errors on your website can have a negative effect on your SEO.

Algorithm – Algorithms refer to the formula used by search engines to determine where a web page should be ranked. Google’s use of algorithms is perhaps the most famous, as they have been the talking point for many online marketers.

ALT text – An essential part of your on-page SEO, ALT text is the description you add to an image. Search engines can’t determine the meaning of your images, so ALT text is the best way to tell the spiders what the content is. ALT text is also important for usability as visually impaired users also rely on this to work out what the graphics are.

Anchor text – This is the visible text of a clickable hyperlink. Search engines use this to indicate the content of the landing page, the relevancy of the referring site, and the text used in the link. Recent updates to Google algorithms have meant that online marketers need to diversify this anchor text to avoid an over optimisation penalty.

Backlink – Sometimes referred to as an inbound link, a backlink refers to any link that is pointing back to your website. Online marketers look to build quality backlinks to their website to help increase their search engine visibility. Poor quality backlinks can lead to a Google penalty.

Bounce rate – The bounce rate of your website is the percentage of visitors who enter your site and exit on the same page, without navigating around or clicking any links. Online marketers spend a great deal of time working on lowering bounce rates, and encouraging website navigation.

Canonical URL – As an SEO, your job is to point search engine spiders in the direction of your most authoritative content. But there are some occasions where pages are duplicated, whether through including the same product in different categories or as a result of tags in blogs Canonical tags tell Google which of these duplicate pages you would like it to treat as the “original”. Find out more on the Google Webmaster Tools blog.

Click-through-rate – Often abbreviated as CTR, this refers to the percentage of website visitors who click on a particular link. Put simply; this is the number of people who have clicked through to your website or content out of the number of people who were exposed to the link.

Conversion – A conversion refers to any action you want your customers to complete. This will range from making a purchase or enquiring, to signing up to your mailing list or downloading your latest whitepaper.

Deep linking – This is the process of linking to pages deeper within your site, as opposed to just sending traffic to your home page. This increases both their search engine authority, and visibility.

Googlebot – Sometimes known as a Google spider or crawler, this term refers to the way Google’s spider programme. The search engine will scour your website, and take in all the relevant information, before deciding what your site should be ranked for.

Impressions – This refers to the number of times your advert or page has been seen by internet users. It doesn’t refer to the number of clicks, so will always be higher than your visits. This does give you an indication of your potential audience reach, though.

Inbound marketing – Inbound – or pull – marketing refers to methods that pull customers to your products and website. These methods are interactive, and based around providing answers of value for your customers.

Indexed pages – Indexed pages are pages that the search engines recognise as being live on the net. These pages will then naturally appear in the search results for both your target keywords, as well as organic rankings. To see which pages from your website have been indexed, search “site:yourURL.com”.

Keyword – Keywords or key phrases are the terms you’re optimising the individual pages of your website for. These can be split into long-tail and short-tail, based on the length of the phrase and number of potential visitors. Keywords should be words that internet users actually search for. SEO will help your website rank for these terms.

Landing page – A landing page is the page an internet user is directed to when they click a link, either in the search engine results or in an article. Your landing pages should be user-friendly and designed for conversions.

Meta descriptions – Meta descriptions are the phrases that appear under your URL in the search results. This should sum up your page, and what users will gain from clicking the link. Characters are limited though, so you need to keep it concise and snappy.

Nofollow – This command instructs search engine bots not to follow the links or pass on PageRank on an individual link.

Noindex – Similarly, this is another command that informs Google not to index a page or link. Pages you would mark with a noindex command include pages with duplicated content and other information you don’t want to be readily available such as private documents.

Organic link – Organic links are those built to add value to a website, rather than for SEO purposes.

PageRank – PageRank (PR) is used by Google to identify the popularity, trust and authority of a particular domain. This is a value between 0-10 and can be displayed with the use of a number of browser add-ons.

SERP – This is an acronym for search engine results pages. These are the organic results that are pulled up when uses search for a particular key-phrase as well as the paid adverts. SEOs spend their time trying to make web-pages appear higher up in the SERPs.

And there you have it, a quick overview of some of the most common SEO terms. Hopefully this will have decoded some of the jargon, and help you speak the same language as your online marketing agency.

The problem with most marketing departments is that they act merely as facilitators; creating RFPs (request for proposals), re-purposing creative work, and making sure business as usual stays well, usual. I’ve sat through countless “brainstorming” sessions that end without any resolution or clear objectives on how to push the needle forward.

There may be good ideas but many of them fall short because teams lack the internal resources to take any serious action. Instead, these ideas turn into budget discussions which then get passed around through a bottleneck of departments until they finally fall flat on their face. It’s hard to attain the necessary agility required to run a modern business if you’re employees lack any executable technical skills to create dynamic marketing campaigns.

Vital Skills for Modern Digital Marketers

The beauty of modern digital marketing is that there are endless resources (online) to get yourself acquainted with the latest technologies. Websites like Lynda.com, Tuts Plus, and Tree House make it easy and affordable to learn many of these skills.

HTML/CSS

This is a no brainer. Basically, everything you see on your phone, tablet, and computer screen has HTML and/or CSS sprinkled in there somewhere. It’s the backbone of the internet as well as many popular phone and iPad apps. Also, almost every email campaign you receive is built using HTML and CSS. A great place to get started is W3 Schools, a website where you can “try it for yourself” and test real world examples of how HTML and CSS work. Many equate writing code with math and that’s just plain wrong. Being able to create web pages is incredibly liberating and has little to do with numbers.

WordPress (content management systems)

WordPress is the CMS of choice right now, there’s no debating that. Learning how to use it to its full capabilities makes you especially dangerous as a marketer. A staggering number of new websites are being built with WordPress and learning how this ever-growing and scalable content management system works gives you a leg up on the competition. Rarely are websites built using static HTML&CSS anymore. Other popular CMS’s include Magento (eCommerce), Joomla, Drupal, and Expression Engine. From a numbers perspective I suggest starting with WordPress, its backend is more user friendly than the others and the sheer number of plugins makes adding new functionality for non-programmers a breeze.

SEO (search engine optimization)

While many companies choose to hire an external SEO expert it’s becoming more common for businesses to build their own internal teams. A great beginners guide to get started can be found at Moz. This simple graphic gives noobs an overview of how search engines evaluate and index websites. If you want to get down to the real nitty gritty of search engine optimization then you should also check out The Art of SEO by Eric Enge. This book exhaustively covers SEO and should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves an “expert”.

SEO is hot right now for good reason. Most companies that made the leap to digital marketing naturally went to paid advertising first, mainly because of how closely it resembles traditional formats like the YellowPages. What many are now realizing though, is that creating campaigns which rank naturally in search results is akin to having a billboard on the world’s busiest highway – it pays dividends. Creating useful content that gets found for years past the post date makes a strong case for the overall concept of Inbound Marketing.

Google Analytics

GA is packed with useful data sets. Several applicable to marketing:

Page Views – how well a direct response campaign is performing via visitors sent to that particular splash page.

Bounce Rate – are visitors even staying on the page once they get there? If your bounce rate is high then you may want to adjust the message of your campaign. People leaving obviously means they didn’t find what they were looking for.

Technology – GA allows you to see what browser visitors use most. You can usually assume an older demographic if half of your visitors are using Internet Explorer 7. Vice versa if the majority use Chrome, Safari, or Firefox – assume you have a younger demographic. Browser technology can also inform your web design teams as some modern technologies (HTML5, JavaScript) act funny on outdated browsers.

Geography – if you’re a U.S.-based boutique website selling knitting supplies online and you find out that most of your visitors are from Canada (where you don’t ship to) then you have a major problem. Knowing where you website visitors come from is important in understanding your audience reach. If you can only do business in a certain area of the country then you may want to pay extra close attention to these stats.

Incoming keywords – what keywords do people use in search engines to find your site? Although this statistic is dwindling (thanks to encrypted search) it’s still very useful in gauging what words people use to describe your brand.

The ability to understand website-related data allows you to use valuable statistics to inform your digital campaigns. Explaining potential ROI through hard data makes upper management happy and adds another level of accountability to your pitches.

Photoshop

A lot of us wish we paid more attention to this when it was offered for free in high school. Who’d have known how powerfully this software would be in the real world. Having a basic working knowledge of Photoshop allows you to put together marketing flyers, enhance pictures, create info-graphics, add logos to websites and so much more. I could write 20 articles on how useful Photoshop is to the modern marketer. And if cost has been a barrier to entrance for you in the past ($600-$700) then fret not, Adobe just announced their ceasing to release stand alone creative software and will now be pushing their cloud-based monthly service, allowing monthly, customized solutions. Learning the basics is enough to give you a leg up.

CRM, Email Marketing

I lump these together because they’re closely related from a marketing and customer engagement perspective. With SaaS (software as a service) solutions like SalesForce the modern marketer is able to tie marketing objectives closely to their digital campaigns. The amount of customization in SalesForce is mind boggling (if not intimidating at times). You can keep track of your current customer list, assign leads, set reminders, and much more.

Along with web form-to lead integration many CRMs also play nicely with email software. Programs like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, Exact Target, and Bronto allow marketers to rapidly deploy email marketing campaigns and receive direct feedback like open rates, engagement, unsubscribes etc. in real time. There are plenty of templates available for free to get you started. It does help though to have an understanding of HTML, CSS, and Photoshop to customize these campaigns.

Knowledge is King

As clichéd as this sounds it’s especially true in regards to digital marketing. Because of how quickly technology changes it’s important to keep yourself updated on all the latest trends. Continual education is paramount in becoming a better marketer. Learn to aggregate news sources through RSS and subscribe to magazines like Advertising Age and Wired to keep yourself above water.

Once you’ve launched a properly designed website, promotion is one of the most crucial steps you have to take. For most people, this is the most tiring and boring step they’d rather not take. Understandably, promoting a site is not a simple task: it requires a strong strategy, financial, time investment, and overzealous commitment.

Nonetheless, why do you have to do it?

Tell people you exist

Out of the numerous reasons as to why you have to promote, your site is because people need to know that you exist. Leaving visitors to find your site in the rubble can be the hardest thing you can do because in all measure. However, promoting makes it easy to introduce your offerings to the world, market, etc.

Ward off Competition

Billions of web pages are released onto the internet every day. Out of these, just a handful is unique and this means that you may not be so different from them as far as what your site is concerned.

Adding to the fact that most of what is published or launched is at most times, related to what you publish, where do you see your web page ranked? The truth is that, without promotion, it will be next to impossible for your website to be heard about, let alone attract searchers. One need to promote to ensure that their website’s message is send out there, before the competition does.

Improve brand recognition

Promoting your website is essential for the growth of your company’s brand. Promotion exposes your website to new people, visitors and users. All these add up to make your brand more recognizable and visible, which may translate into more sales, higher click trough’s, more page views and whatever else you’re trying to get with your website.

Increase website traffic

According to a recent survey, the total number of visitors who pass through Google is about 191 million in the US alone-a lot more in the rest of the world. These searchers could possibly make an entrance to your website, if enticed or pushed to do it.

Without an ounce of promotion however, your website will miss the massive opportunity to get a significant amount of search or web traffic. Promoting makes your website more visible and available to the large pool of the massive internet users from around the world. These could potentially visit your website and make a purchase depending on how your site is structured. For most people, traffic is the biggest motivation for promoting website because once you have the visitors; you can do whatever you want with them.

Increase website authority

One of the biggest signals that determine website visibility or even brand development is how robust your authority is. For websites, the journey starts from 0 upwards. The higher up your website is ranked, the better it will be for you. Promoting your website on social media, and other websites for example, contributes to your authority, which makes your website more reputable and authoritative; this is something most of us desire.

Increase sales

Research has shown that conscious promotion of a product (in this case a website) leads in increased sales volumes. If you properly target your website’s promotional activities through the proper segmentation of audience, the chances of converting the visitors into real buyers of particular products or services offered on your website increase.

Get more people to subscribe

Getting more subscribers and users for your websites’ products and services is running promotion activities for it. More especially, if you target real customers for your website, the chances of getting more customers will increase. Everyone knows what a longer customer base or email list means for any business owner or website owner-more revenue streams.

PR

If your website is mentioned negatively on the web, the chances of having bad publicity can hurt a business behind it. If your website or online business has been mentioned adversely in online media, the most effective way to wane that off is promote your positive sides hard. If your website succeeds in getting more positive mentions than negative, you can rest assured that you’re safe, rather than not doing anything at all in the face of adverse mention.

Create more connections

Most of the people who have had to create connections organically have had to wait for a very long time. However, if you plan to get into the top league of website owners fast, aggressive promotion may be the most effective ways to land most of them. Promoting your website on other people’s websites for instance, will give you a larger user base, which you can use to create connections, relationships and possibly convert to money or regular readers.

Overall, promoting a website is the brick and mortar of online business success. The above factors should make you reconsider the non-promote attitude you may harbor because in the end, you stand to gain a lot.

When a domain name is the first thing potential visitors see about a company, the choice of name is vital. Choosing well is about selecting the first impression that is made on potential website visitors and ensuring they don’t have a chance to get the wrong end of the stick.

When choosing a domain name, as with choosing a company name, there are several things to be taken into account. Of course, the first choice – and maybe the second, third and fourth as well – may already be taken, so this limits the options for picking an appropriate name. However, what might be obvious to the person choosing the name might not translate well when viewed by someone who wasn’t involved in the process of making the choice.

What’s in a name? Would a domain of any other name be as sweet? The name chosen needs to be clear, fit with the image that the site is trying to convey and leave no room for misinterpretation.

Common errors

There are some common mistakes made in selecting a domain name that can easily be avoided. These are:

1. Complicated titles

The last thing a potential website visitor needs is a complicated URL to remember or type in. Although there are ways to secure a chosen name that may have already been taken such as the inclusion of hyphens and extra letters, this can add a degree of complexity that turns visitors off.

While it might seem like a good idea to choose your-domain-name.com when yourdomainname.com is already taken, it places a responsibility on visitors to remember where all the punctuation goes in order to find the right site. Chances are they will end up at the wrong website, potentially losing a visitor to a competitor in the process. It would be better to choose a completely different name that can be promoted in other ways than one that risks sending visitors to the wrong destination by mistake.

2. Unfortunate unseen meanings

Sometimes, when you’re close to a subject it can be hard to see anything but what you intend. However, put the same thing in the hands of someone else and it can take on a whole new meaning.

The computer component recycling company IT Scrap clearly didn’t think about how their name could read when placed in an address bar without any spaces. Similarly, the good people at the Pen Island Tourist Information Bureau didn’t imagine how differently the name of their destination would read when the spaces between words were removed.

In order to avoid any disasters, ensure that someone not involved with the organisation checks the domain name before committing to reserve it. This can save a world of problems down the line.

3. Missed opportunities

If the title of the company or site is one that’s easily misspelled, a considerable amount of potential traffic can be lost by people putting in the URL incorrectly and not trying a second time.

Try not to miss the boat

If it’s clear that people could easily get it wrong, and if the alternatives are available, it makes sense to reserve all the potential misspellings and point them at the same URL. That way, the chances of missing a hit are reduced.

There are a few simple errors in the choice of domain name that can make a big difference to a site’s traffic. Taking a few simple steps to avoid these can make the choice of domain a big success for attracting hits.

Facebook finally came around to join the rest of the large social networks in terms of using the hashtag (#). Twitter made it recognizable in the social media streams and has become more and more popular over the last few years. Enough where about half of the world’s most watched sporting event, the Super Bowl, sported hashtags during commercials. When the audience saw the hashtags, viewers related them to Twitter.

The Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn social networks added the feature in the past year…and today, the hashtags became ‘active’ on Facebook. Better late than never. Now, we’ll see how Facebook continues to develop the hashtag.

Here’s a few quick tips for brands and marketers to take advantage of the power of the #hashtag:

* Why even pay attention to this? Brands will now be able to listen in easier to real-time conversations and posts about its products and company by following/search for keywords.

* With Facebook’s love of showcasing pictures and images in the Newsfeed, etc, it has become even more important to use related, keyword hashtags in with your photo post. With this, if someone were to search for your hashtag word, the picture and brand will be available too. Something to think about.

* Hashtags are not working for mobile…yet. But if posting on mobile, they do showup on desktops…and eventually should work on mobile too.

* Each hashtag on Facebook has a specific URL with a status update box. By using this URL, you can be creative to post this on other social networks to bring more traffic to your conversation.

* Using hashtags in Facebook advertising. Facebook shared, ”If you are already using hashtags in an advertising campaign through other channels, you can amplify these campaigns by including your hashtags in Facebook advertising … Any hashtags that you use on other platforms that are connected to your Facebook page will be automatically clickable and searchable on Facebook.”

* Avoid Hashtag Spam…please! For some newbies or desperate marketers, there is a temptation to maybe want to use several hashtag words and/or phrases. Please don’t. We all know is being attempted…and nobody likes it.

* Be creative with it! Think about how your brand can align with others or market in effective ways!

Last year, Matt Cutts said that Google would probably start devaluing infographics, since they’re often made as link bait and aren’t fact checked as well as standard text articles. As a result, I’ve never thought of infographics as particularly successful internet marketing.

If someone had given me a standard infographic explaining how trucks affect our livelihood, I probably would have found the mixture of text and graphics overwhelming. If I’d read an article with the same information, I would have skimmed the bullet points and thought it was overly simplistic and somewhat biased (this was created by truckerclassifieds.com, after all). But the deliberate pacing of a rolling infographic made me really read each point. Simultaneously, the matching pictures helped to reinforce the points in my memory.

While there has been an increase in the development of interactive infographics/microsites, standard infographics still remain the most popular. Now that many internet marketers work with in-house designers it’s fairly easy to bang out a set of illustrations to reinforce a topic. Yet, most of these infographics still make little impact online. As marketers struggle to continually create engaging content, its essential that pieces are both vastly informative and intriguing, and interactivity is a great way to do this.

Pros of Interactive Infographics

1. More Engaging

“Interactive” means that the visitor has to do something in response to the infographic. Take SimpliSafe’s interactive security quiz as an example. By making visitors read a question, think of their answer, and then get a response that’s tailored to them, the facts come across much more personal (and, you stop people from skimming).

2. Can’t be Stolen

If someone wants to steal a text article, a scraper can crawl your site, copy the text, and duplicate it on a different site. If someone wants to steal an infographic, he or she can download the image and put it on his/her own site. But if someone wants to steal an interactive infographic, they have to steal an entire page full of images and probably some JavaScript. If they do try, they’ll probably end up using at least one image that’s still hosted on your domain or CDN, in which case you can tweak the image title on your own site and upload a new, disruptive picture with the old file name.

3. Can be Read by Search Engines

Most of the infographics that I’ve found can’t be easily read by search engines. Since standard infographics behave like pictures, search engines can only access the file name, alt text, and the surrounding text. But since interactive infographics are essentially webpages, their text can be coded in HTML, allowing search engines full access to all of their content.

Cons of Interactive Infographics

1. It’s New

Interactive infographics are impressive, and you’re probably thinking that the design would take way too long or cost way too much. In reality, developing interactive infographics isn’t that much more difficult than creating static infographics. It just depends upon the skill sets and experience of your creative team. Since interactivity opens the door to a host of new techniques, there will be a learning curve in finding what actually works well for your project.

2. It Takes Development Resources

Interactive infographics use web-programming languages, like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to execute their designs. That’s great for search engine optimization but it means that you’ll need someone who can code in order to implement the design. Since most graphic designers focus primarily on print/branding projects, you’ll need to track down a seasoned front-end developer to help you build out your vision. While this may sound like a hassle, as the general trend of online marketing continues to adopt interactivity, it’ll be important to have a good dev around anyway. So, you might as well adopt soon.

Bottom Line: Interactive Infographics Vs Standard Infographics

The whole idea behind infographics is that they are a more exciting (re: more likely to be shared) way to communicate information. Interactive infographics are exciting already because they’re new, but even as they become the norm, their flexibility will allow designers to share information in continually creative ways.

Social media marketing plans have evolved in different forms over the past few years, especially with the networks’ competition to keep improving and offering more tools. Many companies have used social media pages like Twitter and Facebook to target specific marketing campaigns. Hashtags are an integral part of these digital advertisements and sharing is another important feature that must be used for success.

Here are ten key tips to make sure your social media campaign is all that it can be:

Monitor your Twitter account at least 5 times a day. Trending topics rise sharply and disappear within hours. It’s important to watch them, in case you can capitalize on them for your social media marketing.

Keep a monthly calendar with dates and activities that seem not important, like celebrity birthdays. These types of things trend on Twitter in a big way.

Be sure all of your pages have widgets and tools for each of your social media pages.

Don’t follow random people on Twitter. Utilize sources like Twellow and Peer Index to look at lists. Or use Klout to find key influencers on the topics that your brand is most interested in.

Use your posts to coordinate with the time of day. If it’s lunch time, try and tie that into your post. Or even the day of the week. Followers are more willing to respond to a post about weekend plans on a Friday, for example.

Make sure images on Facebook are large and attractive.

Don’t spam! Make sure you are not filling your follower’s newsfeeds with too many posts a day. Twitter can easily post more because of the extra noise and users understand more. Sometimes less really is more!

Keep hashtags short and to the point. Use it sparingly so it is not used negatively.

Link building in the past was under less scrutiny than it is today. Google has turned up the dial on the quality heater. Anything that is not genuine or well-structured, simply doesn’t make the grade, and rightly so!

It was far too easy to gain high end rankings, the formula was simple, create pages add content, structure the pages correctly, and then build a mass amount of links over a period and make it look natural in the link profile, right?

This worked and it was very effective, new sites with 8-10 month old domains could scream into first page of Google with very little questions asked. This did them no favours though, because Google clicked on and decided that strict quality guidelines needed to be adhered to by every website. It was too easy to make money and authoritative sites; massive industry companies like NIKE were challenged for keywords by wee tams shoe shops in the Glasgow high street.

Trying to see it from Google’s point is interesting; one might wonder wonder did they have the quality plan in place and ready to be deployed even before they saw that the linking structure could easily be manipulated to bring results? Possibly, even so, they implemented the Panda Update followed by the Penguin update. These were, basically, Google’s knockout blow, to companies manipulating and using black hat SEO techniques, many companies never recovered to fight again.

Google was making a statement, the statement effectively rippled through the world of the web with over 75% of the internet businesses worldwide affected. It was making its self-stand out as the rest of the web fell round about it in a blind panic of not knowing just what happened.

The reality, however, was people, successful people at that were going to bed as they normally would, the same thoughts going through their heads on the pillow, only to wake up to this nightmare: from sitting in top 3 ranked Google spot, to nowhere in the top 1000 results. Business’ that were going well, receiving plenty of traffic; plenty of sales, sitting sweetly amongst the top 3 positions in page one, completely dropped out of the search engine results pages due to these two updates.

Business booming went to business bust, but it was needed because Google had to show that it was in power, in control, and its priority was to provide relevant results to end-users. Many companies were wiped out, some still in recovery and some were left untouched. Google made the statement of “I’m in charge and this is how it’s going to be done,” and if people find a way to manipulate the current algorithm, it will only send out another update to disrupt any spamming schemes.

The difference of success amongst the search engines is affected by link popularity.

Link popularity can be explained like this: it is, basically, the number of quality valued incoming links that are pointing towards your site. If your site holds value, then people will want to be linking to it, the various search engines consider these factors when ranking your site. The results are simple the more quality links you have and are creating are shown in the sites ability to rank well in the search engine results.

Some of the very best incoming links you can get come from the most authoritative sites. Examples of authoritative sites would include the likes of sites like BBC, Yahoo, NHS, and from other well-established and trusted sites, which relate and share the same focus as your own site. Linking with these sites will also bring massive exposure and increase your visibility.

You need to create a quality site with rich unique content. The Key to success is ensuring you have correct key word density, don’t try to stuff key words and attempt to fool or trick the search engines you will get found out. Make your intentions honourable and clear, be a fair player and you will be rewarded for your honesty.

Create unique pages and have the correct links pointed towards these pages, it’s all about quality these days and relevance. Quality over quantity must be remembered at all times. Bad placed spammy links and mass volumes of them only bring trouble and poor rankings.

As the search engines restrictions get tighter, then the quality of link building and how it’s done must improve and be in line with Google Webmaster Guidelines. You need quality, relevant and well-constructed web pages, with unique rich well-written content.

The better your site, then the more likely people will want to naturally link to it. Gain trust and link to authoritative sites, don’t automate links or get involved with doorway pages or link farms. Involvement in these areas will only result in penalization and it could be a long time before you are seen coming in from the search engine abyss.

Do everything by the book, give the search engines what they are looking for and you will be rewarded. It takes time to build and gain quality links. Link building done correctly is very powerful and effective; link building done incorrectly can be detrimental to any online campaign that is involved with it.

In the world of SEO there are certain factors which need to be strictly followed in order for you to rank well and effectively. Google web master guidelines should be followed in order for you to correctly set yourself up and avoid the many pitfalls out there if you don’t.

Correct white hat SEO is the correct and proper usage of certain SEO strategies and techniques that involves you focusing on the human audience rather than the search engines attention. Note that Google web master guidelines must be followed, with search engine policies and rules being adhered to.

Your site needs quality content which is rich and giving the end user the quality they deserve. Your content should be relevant to your site and have the correct ratio of keywords embedded in it, hiring a good creative agency could help you achieve this goal. This will naturally generate links as people will want to link to your high quality content that is on your site.

High quality ethical Link Building should be written in quality English and be of a high standard and linking to relevant posts and pages. No longer is it viable to produce mass amounts of links in unnatural blogging networks, written in pigeon broken English consisting in low quality.

White hat SEO is usually written and used with the end user in mind and is set out for the long term, knowing if you set out for the long term and future proof work on your site will ultimately put you in great standing in regards to how your site will rank after Google has crawled it.

Having an eye on what Google’s latest updates are and what they involve is also essential to keep you in good standing. Always select one of the best digital marketing agencies around, this is an incredibly important decision you have to make. With so many agencies nowadays claiming to be able to get great results for very little money should set alarm bells ringing. If you are looking to buy SEO software remember if it sounds too good to be true it usually always is. Select an SEO Agency who can prove what they can do, live results, active client base, testimonials and current client that you can contact should be easy for them to provide.

You are paying for quality services not scouring the net to see where you can find the lowest prices backed up with empty promises!

Link building can be difficult to keep up with, it’s ever changing from one period to the next. If you have internet savvy you will know what worked in 2009 may not work in 2010 and what worked in 2012 may not work in 2013. The reason for this is that the search engines like Google are always looking to improve their algorithms, they do this by constantly changing and updating the specifics in the ranking factors of which need to be followed to obtain good solid steady rankings. We can say then that companies looking to rank well must keep their ear to the ground and nose in the air to quickly sense the winds of change and of what Google’s latest requirements are for in the area of Link building. We can also agree that its essential ,that we can differentiate from what worked yesterday to what needs to be done to work correctly and within Google’ webmaster guidelines today.

Keywords the first stage

The first place to star would be highlighting exactly what key word or phrase you need to be competing for this will be determined on what your business is or does. Once you have decided on what key words you are looking to target you then will need to decide on realistic strategies which will allow you compete and rank higher than your competition. The higher you rank will be an example of the high quality backlinks you will be pulling in, with lower quality backlinks leaving your competitors always second best, “quality over quantity” should be principle.

Choosing Quality Content

It’s essential to know that the search engines do sift your links and will place a value on their findings. You need to make sure that you are delivering high quality relevant content, make it unique fresh and partnered with a successful high quality back linking strategy in place will put you in good standing in the search engines. There are plenty of examples out there with sites full of garbage content which do gather links, these sites don’t gain any real value from these links, the following formula explains the results you can expect poor content quality + poor linking = No rankings

Try and obtain links from credible sources, Wikipedia.com, NYTimes.com, BBC.co.uk, links from these sites hold high value and add quality juice to you linking structure, more than say random urls from around the web.

So you need to create a good structure that will draw credible links. Always remember you are trying to capture the attention of the audience and draw them into your site. In general people have a very short attention span so capturing is the key. Catchy titles and a strong opening paragraph which tell them exactly what you are all about and what you do.

It’s a Marathon not a Sprint

Many times have I seen a rogue company fly into top positions from out of nowhere, these sites stick out like a sore thumb in the eyes of Google. Yes it’s unfair and they grab some of the lime light at the top, all the hard work you seem to have done looks like it’s been a waste of time. In the same way they flew in, they fly right back out, underhand tactics and wrong manipulation will give a quick boost and rocket rankings. You need to remember a quick fix is exactly what it is only for a short period, once Google has crawled your site and updated its algorithm you can bet you will be further behind than when you first started off. It’s better to do the work and put in the slog and build for the future and not the present. Google will reward the diligent, and mark down the underhand tactics of those who want quick fixes. It’s a marathon not a sprint, put in the work gains the rewards and recognition you will deserve.

The link building movement is growing. Many years ago there was no such thing as link building or even Google for that matter. Before Google many depended on other means of advertising and getting word out about a product or a business. Now there is so much that can be done with link building and it can do wonders for a small/large business or organization. Even though the business has grown and many are aware of it all there are many improvements that can still be made.

So much information and research has gone into this industry and how to effectively link build in 2013. There are many things that were once practiced in this field that is no longer used or tolerated. With the constant updates from Google and how things are ranked be prepared to take a hit if the link building method being used is a shady one.

Link building today can be pushed through communities and sharing links with friends. Through the building of link networks more people can get build the value of their webpage, product, and their company. Guest posting is another great way to share links across different networks and platforms. The more these habits are practiced the better link building will become in the future.

Creating infographics is another great way to promote links to the masses. It is a cool and creative way that sparks the interest of those who visit the pageand create a value for what is being explained to them. More practices like these will continue in the link building industry as the field begins to expand even more.

These are only a few tips that could push a company’s link building to the next level. The subject matter is very diverse and can be tackled from several key areas and points. No worries if it isn’t understood at first, it will make sense later.

Building organic traffic to a website is a long and arduous task. It takes a lot of time and more than just a little effort. SEO companies have to study and understand the field on many different avenues in order to be great. Link Building has been one of the biggest things to grow out of the SEO field, and that specialized area for search engines has grown as well. In the beginning link building was done all wrong. But, here are a few tips and ideas to help an SEO company’s link building success.

There were many companies jam-packing their websites with links in order to be found or searched in the different search engines. When Google caught wind of such activity those sites began to suffer as Google reformed how links are searched and valued. Now, there is so much more that has to be done in order to push a company to the first page of the Google ranks.

Quality is the new wave of the future. Although it has always been the wave it is being stressed upon link builders of today. Bombarding sites with links will not bring success any longer. Building quality and value for the site and the content created will have a much longer lasting success than any other method that can be thought of.

Submitting links to blogrolls and other sites will allow the value of a link to build as well. This also goes along with guest blog posts and sharing content of others and not just the work of the company alone. In order to truly build great links there will have to be a community of link builders to band together in order to contribute to the greater cause or the bigger picture.

As the link building industry grows more improvements will come about. Pay attention and be aware for the future of link building could change at any moment and no one wants to get left behind.

When offering Link building UK services SEO Agencies know it’s important that the link building is not outsourced and is actually done in the UK. I have great knowledge and experience in the Seo industry and have experienced the mass volumes of low quality poorly placed broken English so called links.

It’s like a kid skipping the train fare, he gets away with it for a while and goes undetected, then they bring in more inspectors and eventually he has to pay the same as everyone else.

This is exactly how link building has evolved, yes in the past you could create and publish hundreds even thousands of amounts of links with very little quality and point them to your site and yes it brought results. But did we really think we could get away with it? With the boffins at Google constantly working on new updates that would tighten restrictions, even to the point if Googlebot sniffed a Seo company around your site you would be flagged in webmaster tools.

Were we in SEO always fighting a losing battle? With Google rolling out Panda and Penguin updates to eradicate poor quality sites and spammy links and duplicate content , which is fair enough if you are trying to genuinely rank in the search engines , the restrictions and getting those rankings is and I believe will become tougher as the web evolves. I feel Google wants us to use their web search, but it’s not too keen on people making money from it especially if there not getting a slice of the pie, hence the reason they push and promote there ppc and paid ad options.

With high quality Link building UK services there is a few companies who can provide high quality lazer targeted Link building options.

Quality Link building UK should be, high quality, lazer targeted relevant content, focused on quality not quantity, linking to high quality sites.

I will leave you with this picture, your link building should be undetectable and very powerful, obtaining only high performance results from a good SEO Firm, with long lasting effects, surviving any of Google’s updates

Link building is a subset SEO Service and is simply the process of creating and establishing relevant quality inbound links to your website which will help your website achieve higher rankings within the major search engines and it will also generate targeted traffic to your website. Here’s what I have found out about Link building, through watching how it was done cheaply, to actually doing it myself. I will now try to define link building as simply as I can, I can’t stress or explain enough that it is not the quantity of inbound links to your site that helps you rank well but rather the written quality of those links pointing to your site. There are countless unethical SEO companies around which employ some pretty shady tactics and practices which will just end up damaging your website and detrimental to your online campaign instead of helping it.

Techniques to Avoid……

The famous – Keyword stuffing: which involves you literally packing long lists of keywords and nothing else onto your site. This practice will ensure you get penalized, when it’s crawled by the search engine spiders. You will need to find the correct methods of how to place keywords and phrases in the correct way on your Web site.

Invisible text – The sneaky practice of putting lists of keywords in white text on a white background, in hopes of attracting and manipulating the search engine spiders. Never a good idea, you will get penalized

Poorly written broken English content with links in it also don’t bring the results that you want. Amazingly I have seen links for shooting clubs, the key word “shot gun” on a baby forum!!!!!! Poorly written, poor quality isn’t going to bring you results , so imagine the effect 20,000 of these links would have on your site – NOT GOOD!

Link building should be ….

Well written with content that makes sense with the links embedded in the content.

Should only be in categories relevant to that industry or product.

High quality, focused and lazer targeted.

All links should be able to be followed to their source

Each link should be unique – not spun or software generated.

Should be time consuming, attention to detail is a must.

Remember it’s about THE QUALITY not mass QUANTITY.

Again the above is an abbreviated guide on how link building works for me and my clients, always remember link building is not the full package only a small percentage. It’s like driving a car, you need more than just petrol to drive a car, wheels, nuts & bolts, gear stick etc. It’s the exact same with SEO, there are many factors to be considered to get your site ranking, and it’s helpful to know how link building works.

If you are searching for a way to market your company’s website, then consider content marketing. Search engines notice fresh content on a website. If writing a blog post every day is not feasible, then either hire an in-house blogger, or set a goal to write at least 3 times a week. Google has added a “freshness algorithm” where their web crawlers search for new and fresh content.

Blogs are very simple to create with platforms such as Blogger and WordPress where they provide free templates or relatively affordable templates. If a company already has a website and do not want to add a blog to their site they can simply create a blog with this platforms and buy the domain, “blog.mycompanyname.com.” The content writing on the blog is a great way of adding a backlink pointing the search engines back to your main company website.

How do you create a backlink? The first and most important part of creating links within your content is to make them quality links. Do not stuff the content with keywords. Any blog or written content should be relevant to your product or industry. The best way to create a backlink is to have what is called a resource box, which is an excellent content strategy. A resource box can also be utilised when guest blogging as well.

The resource box generally has a small avatar of the author, the author’s name, and the company URL. The resource box company URL is the backlink. When the blog post has been shared through social media outlets, then it helps spread company link popularity. The second most important component in writing a blog is DO NOT WRITE DUPLICATE CONTENT. Search engines will not index duplicate content. Instead, the Google spiders will log the first of the content and then place the duplicate on a sub-server.

If you find that writing is not your particular “cup o’ tea” then consider hiring an SEO copywriting service. Not only will a copywriter know how to write for people, they will also know how to write for the search engines and be able to build links inside the blog content.

SEO content writing is very different then just writing down thoughts for a blog. It requires the knowledge and understanding of keyword proximity, keyword frequency inside the written content. SEO content writers will also have the understanding of how search engines operate. By putting together search engine optimisation knowledge and quality content a company can boost their Google pagerank and website traffic.

Choosing an SEO Firm that you can trust may be easier said than done. Many these days calling themselves SEO’s are nothing more than charlatans, just because they’ve read a few SEO forums and have completed an ‘online certification’ no more makes them an SEO than me sitting in Macdonalds every week makes me a hamburger.

Still many do call themselves SEO experts, how do i know this? I’ve done the SEO for hundreds of so called ‘SEO experts’ on a white labeled basis in the past, who if you believed their websites were SEO experts but the truth is most had no clue at all. So don’t believe everything you read on an SEO firm’s website. You could try using professional SEO software and see what sort of results you get.

Ask for proof of their SEO results, if they are a good SEO company they should easliy be able to produce dozens of recent results from clients that they have been able to achieve on their behalf, get a good look around their website and go and visit them at their offices (if they’ll let you).

When choosing an SEO Services Company its really important to get it right, don’t fall for SEO pretenders who don’t know much more about how to rank your site than you do. Get a professional SEO company to carry out your search engine optimization.

In 2012 there were many SEO marketing techniques that worked but many more that did not. First and foremost content worked in 2012, content was a great way to insulate your site against some of the wind and the waves of the Google updates of 2012. Content worked in 2012 and will continue to work into 2013 and beyond. So make sure to put your content strategy first.

If you hired an SEO marketing agency in 2012, you may have felt let down, but these feelings may have been misplaced, many SEO UK marketing agencies got the wrong end of the stick in 2012 as their clients rankings and traffic dropped after Google rolled out some pretty major updates. Many people did not realise that their SEO agency was the surest footing for them to get themselves out of the problems associated with these updates.

For almost every SEO Marketing Firm 2012 was turbulent to say the least, out went outdated link building methods like sitewide links, forum signature links and footer links and in came better quality links and better quality original content and the right social media signals. It’s probably best advised if you stay away from automated SEO software because old school SEO marketing methods stopped working in 2012 and it now looks as though these will be consigned to the dustbin of history.

To find out which Seo marketing company can help your website suceed in search in 2013 and beyond do a Google UK search for things like SEO, SEO UK or SEO agency etc, and see if they rank for these terms in the top five of the search results. Then take a look at what they have been able to do for clients and make your decision based on the facts that you uncover.

The internet has a ton of spam sites and Google has committed itself to weeding out spam sites and only producing trusted sites within their search engine results page. One of the most important steps of getting a website within the top spot of search results is to build links from trusted sites back to their website.

When a website has backlinks from a trusted site with a good reputation it tells the major search engines that they are an authority on that subject. The best way to describe this is there are many websites and blogs that quote Wikipedia. Because they have Wikipedia quoted on their site they hyperlink the word Wikipedia to go to the quoted page. Because this website has so many different sites pointing to it, search engines believe it to have produced highly relevant content so it shows up high within search engine results.

Search engines also take into consideration if the link linking back to another site is on a trusted site. It does not benefit a website to have links on sites that have nothing to do with their products or business. A website doesn’t want a link on a cooking website if they sell car parts. The two have no relevance to one another and will not benefit each other for link.

Building too many links too quickly will be considered as spam from the search engines. Getting a Link Building Company can be beneficial for a website because they know the rules and guidelines for link building. If a business has too many poor links pointing to it, then the results of that website will go down in results rather then moving up.

With all of the changes made with Panda and its new updates the older gurus of link building will have to take a seat until further notice. Link Building UK wants to share a few thoughts with you in regards to living in a Post Panda world. You will be given a few tips and ideas on how to still be great at link building and not lose your killer edge.

Submitting your blogs to blog directories are one of those golden gems that are overlooked. Blog directories can really do a good deal of sharing and also providing your content to be searchable across the Google analytic highways and expressways (I know usually people say bi-ways, but no one knows what those bi-ways really are). As you redefine your skill of link building the next steps following will really put the icing on the cake for you.

With social media networks and social bookmarking sites growing rampant please make sure that in your profile you have something that they can click on to then go to your site. Everyone is always snooping around seeing what you are doing on the web. UK link building knows that people will click your links in your profile to see what you are truly about as a person. It is the best way to get new visitors to check out who you are.

Last but not least, become a guest blogger. Every now and then take the time out to be a guest blogger on another website. Guest blogging truly helps to build links needed to those websites at hand. Comment on other blogs and leave as many valuable comments as you can. Submit only original content and nothing more. Research topics you are proposing and make sure you know the topic you hope to write about as well.

For all those in the link building Services world this may be a good read for you. In order to know where you can build your links you have to know a few places that can help you get quality linkage to the next level. #1 in social bookmarking of course is twitter. They are amazing at what they do and they are actually humans using these sites and benefiting. Of course there are a few hundred spam bots but nothing you cannot handle.

Reddit will be the place for all the most random assortment of jokes, technology and world news all over the world. Reddit is a bit cluttered but it is very popular with creative agencies etc in the social bookmarking category.

The newly formed place to get your favorite recipes Pinterest is a cool link building site as well. Link Building Service here is great because it’s more intimate and people really care about what you share. They know you wouldn’t just share it aimlessly.

SEO Link building would encourage you to check out BuzzFeed as well. BuzzFeeder is a cool place to get your bundles of lists of do’s and do not’s. So use it and keep up with the site that helps put social bookmarking at the top if its game.

Delicious is a good place to see a wide array of unique visitors and it is quick and easy. Usually most articles and things you read have this option to share things with Delicious. Add a few tags and a description is optional and then enjoy!

Link Building company understands how important your credibility on the online airwaves are and want to talk about the importance of it with you guys.

Your reputation is all you have and it can drive or break the very business you have worked hard to create. A good reputation attracts others who may comment and speak on behalf of the company which also brings you more business.

Friends trust friend’s more than credible sources. So if someone starts to preach negatively about your company people will believe it. This is where The Reputation Management could help, they are a firm of online reputation enforcers who help ensure your reputation remains intact.

When this does happen the big thing is to determine how big the threat is to you. In life no matter how much you do for the people, the people won’t always go that extra mile for you. Try to find the best reputation management companies by looking for a firm that has been evaluated. Link building companies also have to search the internet world very thoroughly to bring these evil-doers down. But if the threat is small there is no need to cause any more problems and bring awareness to the matter.

Where there are sites that the author’s identity is public, directly contacting the individual is a good approach when it comes to tracking down that “bad” information that is. Posting comments and explaining why someone may have had a bad experience and try to explain that it wasn’t the fault of the company or even a misunderstanding occurred.

UK Link Building suggests when there is negative content the goal is to create positive and unbiased content on blogs, review sites or entirely new ones.

Create a community on different social media networks is a great idea as well. To ensure that you find the best reputation management company look for for with a good rating amongst their peers.

Work with partners as well to build content or ask people you know to write positive reviews on the subject at hand.

You can’t get rid of the negative but you can surely maintain it or bring it down a notch or three.

Listening to online chatter helps you learn more about your company that you did not know about yourself.

Link building comes in handy when trying to build up PageRank with Google. Here are 4 tips on how to get started on the link building of a website:

Build lists on your website, tips lists, quote lists, resource lists, and those you are linking to might like that you’ve listed them that they will give a link pointing back to your article.

Be sure the content on your blog has quality content and information. Have new and interesting content will make other link to that blog because of the information that’s been provided in the blog.

Hire Link Building Services. Having quality links to a website is more vital to PageRank then having a low-quality incoming link.

SEO Link Building can be done by creating GOOD quality, newsworthy press releases. If there is something new going on in the business, submit a press release and PR site will pick it up and publish it and that links back to your website.

There are obviously more tips and ways of creating incoming links to your site. But, this is a good start. Once you’ve started on this for your website business, depending on your industry, look at submitting to small directories or business listings. There are multiple ways of linking, but one this is for sure, if you do not start on building up links to your site your PageRank won’t increase. One thing that should be noted is that each page of a website can have a different ranking. So if there are more than your home page you want found, and then create links to your product page as well.

It is essential to build links popularity for a website to generate a top result in the search engine results pages. A client can have a website developed, but if there are no other sites pointing to that particular website as an authority on the subject, chances are the search engine spider software will not index the website correctly. There are ways of optimising a website “on-page” to bring new visitors and traffic, but it is the websites backlinks, or an incoming link pointing to a site from a directory or other website, that helps a website’s link popularity.

A website’s “off-page” optimisation is just as important than what is on the website itself. Google has a PageRank system that drives tops results according to relevancy. If there is a website that has an incoming link to another website, but those two sites are not similar or relevant to each other, Google’s software won’t rate it high authority.

Link building companies are trained to provide clients and their websites with high quality links back to their site. If a link to a website has an incoming link (backlink) for a webpage with over a hundred other links this is not a quality link. Fifty quality links mean more to a website than a hundred links for low rank pages. There is an art to building quality links, but it’s worth the time and effort to get the “off-page” elements because these quality links help to boost a company’s website rankings and helps their site become an authority in their respective industry.

There three main ways to get your company into the top spots on Yahoo!, Bing, or Google search engine results page: Keywords/Keyword phrases on your webpages, Social Media popularity, and Link building. When a website it built and added to the internet it’s the keywords on pages that are indexed by the search engines spiders. Social Media provides access to potentially new clients and customers to promote or sell your product. What is meant by link building is having other relevant websites link to your website. This results in link popularity. It tells the search engines that your website is an authority on the subject.

One of the many ways you can personally build up backlinks to your website is the use of blog comments. Take ten minutes a day to read blogs and articles that are relevant to your website and make a genuine comment on their blog and simply place your website url after your name. This creates a backlink. Another way to acquire quality links is to find other sites that are complementary to your website, not a direct competitor, and provide one another with a link exchange.

When hiring a link building service choose one where the links they are promising are quality links. You do not want your company’s website link on another website that has 100 other links on it. This type of website is considered a link farm and will not in any way benefit your business. When decided on a marketing business to help promote your website decide on one that will not only provide Keyword placement, social media marketing outlets, but check they are giving quality links back to your website.

Of course with us addressing the many pros to using website templates we feel a little different about the subject. If you truly want to build and grow your company you will have to realize that one it takes time and money. We understand that the dollar is of the essence but why spend in it in an effort that wont maximize your dollar to the very last penny. You get what you pay for in life. And everything that is free isn’t always the best.

Everyone probably has this template or uses this template to some regard. Where is the originality anymore? The issue is that you have a million people walking around with a site just like yours and now you are just a copy of other copies.

Limitations

The limitations are there of course. What you see is what you get but what if you want to change things? Well, you can’t! It is just the nature of the beast. If you are not a programmer who knows coding and how to add and make those edits then you are simply looking at a wall that you cannot paint.

What about search engines?

Good question. Templates do not attract search engines. I really don’t need to say any more than that.

This is great news for someone who worries a lot or is one of those sticklers on seeing the final outcome of any kind of project. With a template you are not shocked as to how your page looks. I can’t say it any better than that; you know exactly what you are getting in the end. SEO Link Building knows this is a great feeling.

Time is money.

Link Building will agree that time is definitely money. So your website took three years to create. It is stunning. It fits everything you love and dreamed of, but the product is no longer important. And this is life at its finest. The reason why templates are great is because you can complete a new website in two weeks as oppose to 6 months. Unless you have a hard working, low budget designer and that seems almost like an oxymoron. You get your product out quicker to make a bit of money to eventually pay for website designers in the future is what I would imagine.

It already works.

Templates have all the good stuff built in already. Link building service will also agree that it is better since you do not have to create certain things such as the “about me” page or the home page. We do have to remember that website templates are made by professionals. They are trying to make your life easier.

I will recommend that if you are going to use templates that they are only temporary. Do not plan to use them for a very long time if you really want to grow and strengthen your business. As you build your money try to put funding into developers and getting a really solid website together!

One of the most valuable gifts that are attached to your ears hardly ever gets used. I imagine a beautiful world where everyone listens and the phrase “Huh?” is really only used because you just physically could not hear the person speaking.

SEO Link Building has quite the experience of listening to clients from all over the UK. We want to know what client needs are before we make a plan to attack. If we don’t know what they need then we cannot ensure the success of any company we agree to work with.

With listening, it is also okay to take notes in order to reinforce what you are hearing. Between mini pauses, repeat back what you have down to make sure certain things are accurate. Asking questions that lead into those answers can be helpful. “How can we better assist you in your Search Engine Optimizing?” “What have others companies done wrong that you do not like and how can SEO Link Building prevent us from making those mistakes?” These simple questions will provide big results.

And of course listening doesn’t just help our Link Building Services as a company but amongst fellow employees. Listening to the needs of our co-workers around us or just being an ear to them to vent and speak their mind on certain things happening in and outside of the company. Being there for your teammates also creates an environment where one would feel they can grow in. Better retention rates are even seen in companies where it seems more like a family than a job.

Listening is the Golden gift and when everyone decides to use it, they will flourish. Whether it is for a new company like SEO link building or in the matters of everyday living.

There are good ways to build links to improve search engine optimisation and then there are bad ways to build links that will hurt your website and keep it from ranking and penalize it. If a company does not know that they are doing this, they are shooting themselves in the foot. If a company does know and wants to try and sneak their way around it and hopefully not get noticed, they are asking for trouble… and eventually will get it.

* Building a network of sites with the sole intention of interlinking them.

* Irrelevant links posted that are not related to the topic writing about.

* Using low quality links

* Avoid webrings and link farms.

So though using some of these could falsely bring you up the rankings, there is a great chance that your site will be penalized by Google and many take several months or more to even recover, if that. It is definitely not even worth the risk because of time, money, and resources that are put into the website.

Google is looking for quality web links and adding quantity low quality website links is not the way to go. Be smart and research more about what Google and its webmaster tools are looking for as far as seo link building. This may be one of your best uses of time and research in understanding the link building area of seo.